Starting the Season
Well, here goes my first blog post - ever! Despite my English major heritage, I haven't been writing much, to my brain's dismay. So I hope this will help me keep myself sharp, focused, and provide reasons for why I do things the way I do. I hope it's helpful to you too :)
This year, we started our first seeds in the last week of January. These include varieties like snapdragons, craspedia, stock, rudbeckia, and icelandic poppies, which are call cold hardy and like being cold - or some that just take a long time to get going, like foxglove and campanula. We are trying a technique that Lisa Mason Ziegler wrote about in her wonderful book, Cool Flowers: by starting seeds very early in the spring or even in winter, and planting them out early, we can take advantage of the cool spring weather that allows hardy annuals to flourish, strengthening their root systems and giving them the natural cool to warm weather they need to complete their life cycles. When I found Lisa's book, at first I was really skeptical, and then I was really, really excited. I saw that all these years I had been waiting for things to warm up, when I could be taking advantage of the cool/cold spring weather! It's the first year we are trying these methods, so we'll see how they work out in our Zone 5 garden, where temps can dip to -10°F.
Our hand-pump style seeder, for the tiniest seeds.
The first seeds to pop up this year were our ornamental kale, Crane Bicolor. They are quick!
I like to use a hand-pump style seeder, from Johnny's Selected Seeds, for these tiny and often expensive seeds. Once you get the hang of it, it's not too difficult to use, and does seems to save some time. As you see, we use heat mats, attached to a thermostat, to give the root zone a lil' bit of warmth to encourage those seeds to pop. I also use acrylic humidity domes to ensure the seeds and seedlings stay moist between waterings. Right now, we grow under T5 grow lights on benches in our basement, which is warm but not too warm. The next big improvement to our farm would definitely be a heated propagation house - right now, we have a nursery inside our hoop house, but it's just not enough space, even so! I feel like we could never have enough seedling space, really.
This year, I finally put together a proper seeding schedule, relying on my Excel spreadsheets and a few hours of tedious computer work. But now I have a list of everything I need to start each week, including successions, bulbs, dahlias, etc, and all I have to do is trust that my December/January self got it right! (Hard to do - I'm always second-guessing her.) Next time, I'll show you how I store and organize my seeds, along with a more zoomed out view of our seeding area, and we'll see how the plants are getting along. Thanks for reading!